Car Radio
by BryceWrites
Summary: Doctor Clarisse Maloney is steady in her practice at New York General Hospital until a boy comes in with symptoms she can't pin to any one illness. Crowley's on the prowl and suddenly, her life as a doctor is over. Can she make it out of this one alive? [Prequel to Heathens because some beautiful people asked for it.]


"Paging Doctor Maloney, we're needed in Exam Room Five. Paging Doctor Maloney to Exam Room Five." The intercom said monotonously.

The Pediatric Center at New York General Hospital only kept on two Pediatric Diagnosis Specialists, and the other was on vacation in Fiji for another week. I'd come to New York General specifically for that reason. I was told over and over how I could've gone to any hospital in the country, but New York General for being such a big hospital, still couldn't provide the care it needed to its patients and I was happy to give it another specialist and a surgeon.

I looked up from my place behind the nurse's station. I wasn't scheduled to have another patient for a few hours. I hung the clip board back up on the wall and moved out from the station towards the exam room.

"Doris?" I asked, looking at the nurse.

"Doctor, I know you're not supposed to have another patient yet, but you need to see this." She told me. Her normal easiness and relaxed demeanor was replaced with a stern expression that made nervousness build in my stomach.

No matter how many patients or problems I encountered in my field of work, it was never easy to see a child with a disability or disease.

I nodded, taking the clip board from her and giving it a once over before opening the door. A mother sat next to her child on the exam table. The boy, who didn't look to be more than ten or twelve, held a waste basket in his lap, his skin almost a shade green. He looked incredibly ill and I was suddenly wondering what had brought them in here.

"I'm Doctor Clarisse Maloney." I spoke gently, watching them both look up at me.

"Oh, please. You've got to help him. He's been vomiting all morning and he's on fire." The boy's mother spoke up, looking close to tears.

"It's Jerry, right?" I asked the boy, putting on a pair of gloves and pulling a stool close to sit near him.

He nodded weakly, his eyes looking a little glassy.

"Can you tell me what you're feeling right now? Are you in pain?" I asked, noticing he didn't have a firm grip on the waste basket; instead he just barely clung to it.

"I woke up puking my guts out." He told me, a hacking cough racking his body and bringing on another bout of vomit. I handed him a tissue to wipe his mouth and he spit out what was left in his mouth. "I've had a bad headache all morning, and I hurt everywhere."

"What hurts the most?" I asked him.

"My chest, my stomach, my throat, my neck, my head." He told me, shrugging helplessly.

"Has he taken any medicine that may have caused this? Possibly undercooked food? This could be a case of food poisoning." I spoke, glancing at his mother as I turned on the electric thermometer and told him to put it under his tongue.

She shook her head, nearly close to tears. "No, it's not, I swear. He's been hurting for a few days, but I didn't know it was this bad. If it was food poisoning, it'd be gone by now right?"

She was right. Food poisoning even in children rarely lasted longer than a day and a half. The thermometer beeped and he handed it back to me, looking ill.

His temperature was a hundred and two point seven, well above any normal temperature for an eleven year old.

I nodded, looking back to Jerry. "Do you have asthma?"

His mom shook her head. "No, he's healthy. He's on the track team."

I nodded, turning to his mother. "I need to run some tests. There's a few things that could be causing this. I'm going to set him up in a room with an IV drip. If he's been vomiting since this morning, he's already dehydrated and we need to get some fluids back in him, because it can make his condition worse. I'll have a nurse in to draw blood and as soon as I have the results, I'll be in to see you."

* * *

Staring at the results of the blood test didn't do me any good. I knew by heart what it read, but I couldn't for the life of me bring myself to think about it. We'd ruled out food poisoning and a cold. I'd feared that it had been Intussusception, but the tests had come back negative.

And there was something in his blood that couldn't be identified by our machines. I didn't know how it was possible; I'd never seen it before.

Doris stood next to me, looking from me to the results and back. "What do you think it is?" She asked quietly.

"It could be Gastroenteritis." I mumbled, not feeling sure of myself.

"His vomit isn't red and that doesn't explain the meningitis." Doris told me, despite the fact I already knew that.

"He could be having an allergic reaction to something." My words felt hallow leaving my mouth. I was a doctor, I wasn't supposed to be guessing about a patient's condition; I was supposed to know.

But I didn't know. He had an array of symptoms that didn't connect all the way around and that didn't tell me anything.

I paused. The unidentified agent in his blood; that had to have something to do with it.

"Are you going to tell Mrs. Kenneth about the Intussusception?" Doris asked.

"You mean the lack thereof? Yeah… Yeah I am." I told her, taking a breath before I made my way out of the lab and down the hall.

Jerry was laid up in bed. His skin had a gray tinge to it and I couldn't help but think how he looked like he was dying. His mother sat close to his bed, whispering kind words before looking up at me.

"Did you cure me, doc?" Jerry wheezed through a hoarse throat.

"Not yet. But the good news is, I know what it isn't." I spoke slowly.

"What it isn't? How does that help us?" Mrs. Kenneth stood, looking irritated. "We've been here almost twenty-four hours and you know what it isn't?"

"Ma'am, I know you're upset, but my team is doing everything we can. By eliminating what it isn't, we're one step closer to finding out what it is." I told her plainly. This was always the hardest part.

"So what? You're throwing darts at the wall, hoping they stick?" She asked angrily.

"Mom," Jerry choked, sending him into another coughing fit that had him vomiting up water. "Don't yell at the doctor trying to save me."

His mother slumped into the chair she'd been previously sitting in and tears broke out on her face. She covered her face with her hands, leaning on the arm of the chair like it was the only thing holding her up.

I turned quietly and moved out of the room, feeling a heavy weight across my chest that I knew would be there for a long time.

* * *

It was almost three in the morning. I'd been pouring over lab results and blood work since my secretary had left at five. I was trying to find a connection, a link to all the symptoms Jerry had. There was research books scattered around me and ten different Google Search tabs up on the computer.

The longer Jerry was here, the worse his fever got. He'd been at a hundred and two point seven when he'd been admitted the day before, and as of nine this evening when Doris checked it again for me, he was at a hundred and three point four.

When a patient had a temperature, it meant their body was trying to fight off whatever the problem was. A fever itself is never a bad symptom, it just means your body is working the way it's supposed to. But a rising temperature meant something was wrong. Maybe his body couldn't regulate his temperature?

I groaned, leaning back in the chair and rubbing my hands over my face. There was fifteen thousand different 'maybe's and 'what if's and I didn't have time for any of them. I had to fix this kid before he spontaneously combusted.

"He's going to die, ya know."

I jumped at the Scottish voice that was suddenly intruding into office. The door still sat closed as I looked between him and it. How had I not heard him enter my office?

"Can I help you?" I asked, leaning forward onto the desk as I looked over the short balding man in the black suit. He looked like he was dressed for a high end funeral.

"I believe I should be extending that offer to you instead." He said with a bit of a smile as he stood between the two chairs I had in front of my desk.

"Excuse me? You're a doctor?" I asked, although I already knew the answer was no.

"Actually, I'm a bit of the opposite. I don't save lives, I take them." He said with a smile, before his face relaxed and he looked down. "Although, I suppose it's not lives I take. It's souls." He said, looking back up at me with a decided expression.

Who let this loon past security? How had he got in here? The psyche ward must be down an actor. "Souls?"

He nodded with a smile. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Crowley, Reigning King of Hell."

A laugh bubbled out of my throat and I covered my mouth to stifle the fit of giggles coming on. "Oh man. You really had me going there for a second."

He gave a flat smile that showed he wasn't too pleased with my reaction. "Does the lack of trust stem from your daddy issues? Of course not. Your father was a stand up bloke wasn't he? It was your uncle that crawled into your bed at night, claiming visions of monsters in his sleep. That was the same reason he told you when he touched all your naughty bits when you were just thirteen, wasn't it?"

My blood ran cold in my veins and I felt like the life had been drained out of me. "How could you know that? I've only ever told-"

"Told one person, yes. Ronnie Watson, your high school sweetheart. We had a bit of a chat before I came to see you. Bad luck for Ronnie, of course, dying in that car accident the day before graduation. He's concerned about the amount of hours you put in at work, although I can't say I disagree." Crowley spoke, glancing at the clock on the wall.

"What do you want?" I asked, suddenly feeling so helpless. He couldn't actually be the king of hell? But how could he possibly know all those things about me?

"I want you to stop trying to save Jerry Kenneth." He told me plainly.

"What?" I choked out.

"I don't believe I stuttered, darling." He said with a coy smile.

"Why do you want Jerry?" I asked, trying to place the pieces of the puzzle together.

"Why not?" He smirked.

But I could tell he had ulterior motives, it played quietly in his eyes. "Why Jerry?" I asked again, a little slower so he knew I wouldn't move past this.

He smirked a little, although a small amount of annoyance played on his features. "Jerry is working for me, he just doesn't know it."

I stood from my chair, moving around to the front of my desk. I leaned against it, folding my arms over my chest. "Explain."

The annoyance on his features increased. " _Nigrum mortem_."

"Black Death?" I asked, feeling more confused than I did before.

"Jerry carries inside him all three strains of the Black Plague. I need him, therefore, you cannot save him." Crowley told me pointedly.

"But that… that's doesn't…" I wanted to say it didn't make sense, but it did. Fever, vomiting, nausea, abdominal pain, meningitis, and today we'd found a bubo on Jerry's inner thigh. All were combined symptoms of Bubonic, Septicemic, and Pneumonic plague. "Oh my god."

"Believe me, darling, God had nothing to do with it." He told me with a smile.

"Save him." I said abruptly.

"Excuse me? We already went through this. I don't save people, I take them." He told me harshly.

"Jerry is just a kid in a long line of kids. You don't need him." I spoke up.

"And what do I need? You?" Crowley spat, turning away from me.

I paused. "Yeah." He turned slowly back to me, obviously intrigued now. "Yeah, you're the devil or whatever. You make deals or something, right? That's the deal. Me for Jerry."

He smirked wickedly and part of my brain screamed that this was a bad idea. "You for Jerry?" He asked, moving closer to me.

"He's just a kid. Let him live and you can have me." I told him.

"That means I have complete and total control over you. You submit to me and do as I say, when I say. You're willing to lose everything for a child that isn't even your own?" Crowley asked, an edge to his words that could have cut me.

"Yes." I said, holding out my hand to him.

"Oh darling, I don't shake." He told me, his face splitting open into a grin.

I pushed forward, feeling my lips against his and wondering if I'd done the right thing. When I pulled back, Crowley smiled. "The deal is done. Best check on your boy." He said and disappeared.

No flash of light, no cloud of smoke, he was just gone.

My phone rang suddenly, making me jump. "Yes?" I asked into the receiver.

"Jerry Kenneth just went into cardiac arrest." Doris told me franticly.

I rushed out of the office and down the hall into his room. The team of nurses surrounded him and as I got closer, he was flat lining. I took the charger pads from the nurse who offered them and put them on his chest. "Charging." I said, watching the machine. "Clear." And the machine tried to force his heart back into action.

Nothing.

"Charging." I said again, fear coating me like liquid plastic. "Clear." This time, his heartbeat came back, a slow steady rhythm on the machine until it sped up and he went into a coughing fit. We sat him up to prevent him from choking on his own puke and before Doris could get him the bucket, he coughed in my face.

I quickly wiped it off of me, but I knew some of it had gotten into my mouth. As soon as the thought entered my mind, my head swam and my balance disappeared, sending me to the floor.

"Doctor Maloney!"

I could hear Doris's voice as I hit the ground and I could feel her hands shaking my shoulders, but then the world went black.

* * *

I opened my eyes. My first thought was how I didn't know where I was; I was laying on my back, looking up at the night sky glittered with stars and clouds. At the edge of my vision, I could see tree tops surrounding me, letting me know I was in a clearing of some sort.

My next immediate thought was how much pain my head was in. It felt like my skull had been split in half and the skin had been stitched together to mock-hold it back in place. The pain was so sudden and so intense, I rolled over and puked.

I coughed, choking up what was in my stomach. I laid on my side on the cool grass for a long moment. My whole body felt sore and achy and I leaned over to choke up the rest of my stomach contents.

I tried to remember how I had ended up in this field, or where I came from, but I couldn't. I couldn't remember anything. I laid in the grass for another set of minutes before I tried to sit up. My head pounded like it had its own heartbeat and I cringed, feeling nausea all over again.

Looking down at my hands, my confusion increased. All over my hands, there were teeny-tiny cuts and bruises. I wore no jewelry, my arms had no tattoos to mark who I was.

Something moved out of the corner of my eye and a man stood a few feet from me in a black suit. He was short and balding on top, with an expression that told me he wasn't very happy to see me.

"You're a long ways from home, Doctor Maloney."

His words had a Scottish tilt and something in the back of my mind triggered and I knew I'd met this man before, but part of me felt like it wasn't on good terms.

I stayed silent on the ground, not sure what I was supposed to say.

"It would have been nice to know when we made our little deal that you had been given antibiotics for _Y. pestis_ in the spring when you had a patient come in with a flea bite." He spoke harshly, slowly stepping closer to me at an easy pace until he was close enough for me to grab his ankle. He reached down and touched two fingers to my forehead.

I gasped, being flooded with memories; my practice at the hospital, Jerry coming in sick, my deal with him.

"Doctor Clarisse Maloney." He said, squatting down in front of me.

I tried to steady my breathing, watching him. "Crowley."

"Now, because you didn't tell me about this antibiotic," He said through clenched teeth. "You are now forever bound with the plagues."

"What?" I gasped. How could I possibly be bound to them because of an antibiotic?

"Plagues live off death and decay. Because you've become immune to them, they can't eat your body in the same way they tried to eat little Jerry Kenneth. It also means they've become trapped inside you and as I no longer have the power to separate them from your body, I no longer have the power to control you, obviously, since I'd never formally invite you to a field where you've hacked up dinner." He told me, looking displeased.

That was good! He couldn't control me, they weren't going to eat me alive. But dread quickly replaced the sense of accomplishment I'd had. "If they don't eat my body…" I paused. "What do they eat?"

"The only thing they have left, darling. That beautiful mind of yours." He told me, standing up and starting to walk away.

"Hey! Wait! You're just gonna leave me here?" I asked, struggling to stand up. My limbs felt like jelly and my joints felt like they were full of sand.

Crowley gave me a nervous glance. "I'm returning to my domain so I can witness the carnage you bring upon the human's second hand."

"Carnage? What-" I started, but he'd disappeared, same as before.

My head still pounded like a bass drum and I looked around, trying to find a sign to tell me where I was. A whisper made me turn in a full circle, looking for the offender. It was quiet, like someone was just out of sight from me.

 _What a beautiful doctor we've taken hostage._

 _Does it look like we've taken her hostage, you idiot?_

 _If she's free to do what she wants, what does that make us exactly?_

"Hello?" I asked, searching the clearing for the three separate voices.

 _Can she hear us?_

 _No one's ever heard us as voices before._

 _If she kills herself, will that release us?_

"Whoever you are, come on out of the shadows! I'm not messing around. This isn't funny." I called to the patch of trees. It was so dark out, I wasn't sure if I could've seen them standing in front of me, let alone behind the trees and bushes.

 _Oh, honey, we're not in the trees._

 _We're in your head._

 _We haven't had this much fun since the last time we got to kill someone!_

* * *

"And this one?"

I heard the man's voice through the vent holes in the door. I didn't care to look through the plastic window at him. He was the third doctor they'd put on staff in the last few months. I couldn't keep track of time anymore, because the voices wouldn't let me remember anything past the fact they were always there.

But something drew me to the doctors that passed through the ward. I had an intense desire to be walking among them in a lab coat, on the other side of the concrete walls.

"Her name's Maloney. She's been diagnosed with schizophrenia." The head nurse said.

 _They're talking about you._

 _Schizophrenia, ha!_

 _Aw. She's not paying attention to us._

I always paid attention. It was all could I could do. They wouldn't let me think or feel anything on my own. The only reason I remembered my own name was because of the nurse.

"What's her story?" The new doctor asked.

"We're not really sure. She was found on the side of the road, clutching a map of New York, mumbling about a man in a black suit. The word Maloney had been carved into her leg with a knife, so the PD assumed it was her name. She was covered in three different kinds of blood." The older woman said with a touch of sadness in her voice.

" _Simplex homines._ "

The words came from my mouth, but they were not my own. I hadn't been able to completely get a hold on the voices yet and sometimes their words would slip out of my mouth. So I'd have to choke them down and force them back into my head. They never knew when they had control over my body and that was how the cop who'd tried taking me had gotten sliced.

I hadn't meant to hurt him, but he'd made the voices mad, making them feel like they were weak and simple, and they would have none of that. I'd carved my name into my leg so I wouldn't forget it and I'd never let go of the knife, simply because I hadn't.

They'd taken over and tried to kill him, but I'd been able to lessen the blow and instead of dying, he'd got a long, papercut deep scratch on his hand.

"Is she… talking Latin?" The new doctor asked.

"Don't mind her, dear. It's mostly in tongues. A lot of it has no meaning. She doesn't talk very much in English anymore. I think she'd too far gone." The head nurse said, patting him on the shoulder. "Welcome to St. Luke's Behavioral Health Center, Doctor Austin.

* * *

I was banging my head on the cement wall behind me, facing the door on the cot of a bed I was given when the man in the black suit appeared in front of me. I couldn't remember his name anymore, but I knew he had done this to me, or caused or, or allowed it to happen. I remembered that much.

"I hear if you bang your head long enough, it'll come out in a shape you like." His Scottish voice was drilled into my memory.

" _Non receperunt._ "

My mouth moved around the Latin words the voices chanted together like a song and I wished I could bite my tongue off so I'd never have to say another unintentional Latin word again.

"Not welcome? Oh, I see how it is. You make the big time and you don't have the time of day for us little people anymore, is that it?" He mocked.

"Leave me to rot. Why come if not to gloat?" I growled, feeling one side of my mouth move as if I were baring teeth.

He shook his head, making a clicking tongue with his tongue as if to say 'tsk, tsk'. "I'll have you know I came not to gloat, but to see how you were."

"You came to see if I let your plagues loose on the world." I told him, continuing to bang my head on the wall behind me.

"Yes that." He said plainly.

"So far, they've tried to get me to hang myself, cut myself, beat myself and throw myself on the guard's stun gun. Yet, here we stand." I told him, keeping up the rocking motion of my head on my shoulders before it would collide with the wall behind me and I'd repeat the action.

He stood there silently for a moment, watching me, appraising me.

For some reason, I was unnerved by his stillness. It seemed unlike him, to not be throwing a harsh word, or moving in some fashion. "What?"

He still watched me. "Just watching you degrade, darling." He said quietly, although I felt like I was being judged.

"Thought you lived for this." I told him weakly, leaning my head forward and letting the aching pain seep into my body.

"Usually I do. Torturing a soul is the one thing that lets me sleep soundly for a few days." He told me.

"Then why do you look like somebody kicked your dog?" I asked.

 _He doesn't care about us!_

 _Just get the damn demon to go away already._

 _If I ever get the chance to take over another body, he's the first I'm infecting!_

 _Can we infect demons?_

 _I don't know, but I'm willing to give it a shot._

"You didn't kick my dog, darling." He said, but his pause told me there was more on his mind then just torture. "But we've seemed to have lost the good doctor somewhere in there."

"I'm just another dead body in a row of dead bodies." I murmured, scratching absentmindedly at my arm, hoping I could suddenly become strong enough to rip it off so the voices would stop bouncing around in my head.

He moved closer to me and I looked up at him, partly hoping he'd kill me and partly hoping he'd just wound me. He almost appeared to be examining me. "I've never seen them tear apart a mind before."

"Take a picture." I spat the words at him. "They say it lasts longer."

He shook his head a little, gently reaching to touch my chin. "Let me talk to the doctor a moment, yes?"

I didn't know what he was talking about, it was me talking the whole time. But something inside my head felt like it shifted and cleared and the pressure that had been pushing against my brain for the length of time the voices had been in my head cleared. I gasped, tears forming in the corners of my eyes from the sudden release.

"Hello Clarisse." He told me, watching me still just as carefully.

"Crowley." I whispered, still gasping for air like it was the first clean breath I'd had in a year of living underground. I remembered everything that had happened, even the conversation we'd had in my office before Jerry went into cardiac arrest.

"Hello love. How are you holding up in there?" He asked and there was almost a twinge of concern lacing his voice.

A tear leaked out of the corner of my eye. "It's like being buried alive, but you can see everybody else above ground."

"For what it's worth, I never wished this kind of a fate upon you. I may live for torture, but not for the unnecessary demise of a beautiful mind. I want you to know that." Crowley told me firmly.

I nodded, rubbing against his hand still placed under my chin. "I know that."

"Forgive me, Clarisse. If I had known…" His words trailed off, as if he wasn't quite sure what to say.

"I forgive you." I told him, tears clouding my vision.

"You are a much stronger human than I originally pegged you for, darling. I won't bet against you again." He told me, leaning down to kiss my forehead.

"Will… will you… please…" I choked, feeling the tears flow freely.

"I can't make them stay away." Crowley told me.

I nodded. "I know… I know..." I said, franticly wiping my face on my shirt so I could look back up at him again.

He moved to sit on the bed next to me, putting his hand on my leg. "But hell can wait for one night."

I nodded, leaning on his shoulder. "My head's so quiet when it's only me." I whispered.

"One day, you'll be able to hear this much quiet again." He told me.

"And when I die before the sun breaks the ridge, let them know I died happy in the peacefulness of the night; wrapped in an embrace warmer than any human had ever given to me."

"What's that from then?" He asked quietly.

"Potter King was my mother's favorite poet. That was his last ever poem, written into his suicide note. I never cared for poetry, but when she died, it consumed me a little bit." I told him.

"There are worse things to be consumed by, so I've heard." Crowley said.

"Like three plagues trying to kill you so they can release worldwide destruction?" I laughed, leaning over as my body went into a coughing fit.

Crowley didn't laugh though, rubbing his hand over my back as I gasped for air.

"Huh. You'd think I hadn't done that in ten years or something." I said, sitting back against the wall next to him.

His silence was worse than any sound of death approaching I could think of.

"I'm not gonna make it out of this, am I?" I asked quietly.

"Get a night of sleep." He told me flatly, answering me without answering me.

I sat there, listening to the stillness of the room. I didn't do as he said; instead we sat next to each other, just barely touching as the night slowly slipped away from me.

But as the sun slowly came up and filled the room with light, my heart sank in my chest. After a long time of avoiding it, I glanced over at Crowley. He hadn't said a word to me after instructing me to sleep, but he'd stayed all night.

When his eyes caught mine, I knew he'd be on his way any moment now.

"I suppose that was the evening." Crowley told me quietly.

I nodded slowly, fearing for the coming attack on my mind.

"I hope it comes sooner rather than later." He told me, standing and beginning to move away from me. He paused a few feet from me and tentatively moved to turn around. He shuffled back towards me, gave me a kiss on the forehead and when I opened my eyes, he was gone.

Slowly and painfully, I could feel them slip back into my mind. It was a creeping kind of feeling, inching back onto me before the pain was loud and clear. I moved to roll into myself on the bed, pulling my knees as close to my chest as I could.

 _Is he gone?_

 _Why did he make us go away for so long?_

 _Hell, she's almost back to normal, like before we got here._

 _How did he erase months of damage in one night?_

 _Well boys, we've definitely got some work to do._

Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes as I wrenched them shut, crying silently into the mattress as they bombarded me with noises I'd never heard and Latin I didn't know the meaning to. The only word they repeated over and over again that I knew was _Mors_. Death.

They wanted me to kill myself.

Part of me wanted to concede, but the part of me that stayed up all night, sitting silently with Crowley told me I was stronger than that. This would cripple me, but I couldn't let them out. So I curled farther into myself and listened to them talk about how they wanted to eat people.


End file.
